Satisfaction with NHS hits lowest level since records began

Satisfaction with the NHS has hit its lowest level since records began.

Fewer than one in four people said they were satisfied with how the NHS runs for the first time in the 41-year history of the British Social Attitudes survey.

Almost three quarters of those who were unhappy said “taking too long to get a GP or hospital appointment” was the main reason they were unhappy.

Of the more than 3,000 people questioned in the 2023 survey, just 24 per cent were satisfied with the health service, a record 52 per cent were dissatisfied, and the remainder were indifferent.

There has been a steep drop in satisfaction since the pandemic, which has more than halved from 54 per cent in 2020, and fell a further five per cent in 2023 compared to 2022.

‘An unprecedented downward spiral’

Satisfaction levels had been relatively stable throughout the previous decade after initially falling from a high of 70 per cent in 2010, coinciding with the change in governing party.

In 2022, satisfaction fell to 29 per cent and the previous lowest level of public satisfaction with the NHS was 34 per cent in 1997, just before Tony Blair’s New Labour won the general election.

Experts said the “depressing” figures left the NHS in “uncharted territory”, with polling suggesting the health service is “the number one issue” that people are raising in the run-up to the general election.

Dan Wellings, a senior fellow at the health charity The King’s Fund, said: “These results are depressing but sadly not surprising. The NHS has seen no respite from the issues that have led to an unprecedented downward spiral in public satisfaction in recent years.

“With the health service increasingly unable to meet the expectations and needs of those who rely on it, public satisfaction with the NHS is now in uncharted territory,” he said.

He added: “At the moment, the NHS is the number one issue that people are flagging for the election, but it is a crowded field.”

Patient groups said the NHS “had plunged from being the pride of Britain”.

“This is such a sad state of affairs it makes me want to cry. The NHS has plunged from being the pride of Britain to an organisation that people moan about nearly as much as the weather,” said Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, an over-60s campaign group.

He added: “We have been banging on about the problems of access to GPs and hospital waiting lists since before the pandemic, but the situation gets worse with every survey.”

The British Social Attitudes research, conducted by The King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust, shows that supporters of both parties are equally frustrated with the NHS.

The post-pandemic dissatisfaction with services has been driven by issues with GPs and other community services.

The results come as satisfaction levels in both GP and dental services also hit an all-time low, standing at just 34 and 24 per cent respectively.

While more than seven in 10 people said GP and hospital waits were the main problem, the other top concerns included a lack of staff, a lack of funding, and the NHS wasting money.

Last year a record number of people waited at least four weeks for a GP appointment, with one in every 20 of the almost 348 million appointments delivered by GP teams taking place at least 28 days after booking.

Half of respondents willing to pay more tax to fund NHS

The NHS dental crisis culminated in hundreds of desperate patients queuing outside of a new practice in Bristol last month in hope of securing an appointment, with police forced to intervene.

The Government has since launched a dental recovery plan with “golden hellos” worth £20,000 and other financial incentives for dentists to do NHS work.

For the first time this century, the survey asked the public whether they would be willing to pay more tax to fund the NHS, with half of respondents agreeing that they would. Wealthier respondents and Labour voters were both more likely to agree.

Jessica Morris, fellow at The Nuffield Trust, said it was “worrying how consistent this is across different NHS services, with inpatient, outpatient, dentistry and GP services reporting record low levels of satisfaction”.

But she said the public “continue to back the principles underpinning the NHS”, namely it being publicly funded and free at the point of use.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said: “After 14 years of Conservative neglect, the NHS has never been in a worse state.

“Patients are waiting 18 months for an operation, more than a month for GP appointments, and NHS dentistry barely exists anymore. The longer the Conservatives are in office, the longer patients wait.”

The study, of 3,374 people in England, Wales and Scotland, is seen as the gold-standard measure of how people feel about the NHS. It began in 1983.

‘An answer to a question no one is asking’

It comes as a report by MPs on the Public Accounts Committee also published on Wednesday found that NHS Supply Chain (NHSSC), a body set up to save the health service money by utilising its national buying power, was “failing” to convince the hospitals to use it.

Almost half of the £8 billion spent by hospitals on medical equipment and products each year is still not being bought through NHSSC, at a cost of tens of millions of pounds.

Dame Meg Hillier MP, chairman of the committee, said: “Given the scale of the NHS’ collective billions of pounds worth of collective spend on procurement, ensuring the best value for money for the taxpayer is essential. But our report finds that trusts do not have the requisite confidence in NHS Supply Chain to utilise its services, leaving it at risk of being an answer to a question no one is asking.”

Impact of strikes has been ‘very frustrating’ 

Chris Hopson, chief strategy officer at NHS England, said: “Whilst these findings reflect the sustained pressure and disruption facing NHS services last autumn, it is extremely welcome to once again see overwhelming public support for the founding principles of the NHS.

“Over the last 12 months as the NHS has continued to recover from the pandemic, frontline services have responded to significant increases in demand, with October seeing the most A&E admissions since January 2020 and GP teams delivering 53 million more appointments last year compared to pre-pandemic levels.

“Coupled with the impacts of a year of strike action, this has affected the experiences of some patients, which we know has been very frustrating.

“However, thanks to the hard work of staff, NHS teams have delivered more elective activity in 2023 than in any other year since the start of the pandemic, with over 17.3 million people treated. It is also encouraging to see a slight increase in public satisfaction with emergency care services over the surveyed period.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We are fully committed to a faster, simpler and fairer NHS, free at the point of need. That’s why we are providing the NHS with record funding of nearly £165 billion a year by the end of this Parliament, an increase of 13 per cent in real terms compared to 2019.

“We are making good progress in cutting waiting lists in England, which is one of the Prime Minister’s top priorities.”